Winemaker Notes
The color is ruby red with reflexes verging on garnet. The perfume is intense, fine and elegant, with notes pf cherries preserved in alcohol, enriched with spices and Mediterranean aromatics herbs. On the palate it explodes in all its finesse and elegance thank to the dense and silky tannins. Excellent body that renders the flavor harmonious and persistent.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Intense and super youthful character here. Precise wine with bright cherries, delicate fresh roses and violets, restrained blood oranges and milk-chocolate toastiness. Almost estery flavors on the full-bodied palate with crisp, integrated acidity and well-formed tannins, showing youthful chalkiness on the finish. Drinkable now, but best from 2026.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The San Filippo 2020 Brunello di Montalcino le Lucére opens to dark concentration and a deep garnet color that sets the tone for a sultry taste profile to pair with game meats. This 10,000-bottle release reveals very bright fruit, propped up by ample acidity that fuels a long and vibrant finish. Like the other wines in this portfolio, this single-vineyard expression is tight and linear with a point of astringency on the tannins.
This elegant wine is aged in a combination of large oak casks and barrique for up to 28 months, with the rest of the maturation period in bottle. Starting with the 2021 vintage, some of those barriques will be phased out. "Our job is to evolve," says vintner Roberto Giannelli. "Our increased knowledge of the vineyards guides the choices we make in the winery."
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Decanter
Crafted from an east-facing plot of 25-year-old vines, Le Lucére is unapologetic and well adjusted in its wood-driven, flashy style. Dashes of mint, vanilla and nutmeg are generously embedded in the blackcurrant backdrop, and yellow broom emerges to add enticement. Robustly fashioned with dense fruit concentration, it flaunts sophisticated chocolatey tannins which contain the whole. Soft acidity is tucked in there somewhere, as this never seems to weigh down the palate.
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Vinous
Darkly floral and inward, the 2020 Brunello di Montalcino Le Lucére slowly evolves with a brooding mix of dried roses, underbrush and smoky black cherries. This is elegant and supple with depths of ripe wild berry fruits offset by crunchy mineral tones as fine-grained tannins amass toward the close. An air of violet inner florals combines with blackberries and hints of sage as the 2020 finishes dramatically long and structured with a mentholated tinge that maintains freshness. This is beautifully balanced and classic in feel. Bury it in the cellar.
Rating: 94+ -
Wine Spectator
This red strikes a nice balance between its ripe fruit and savory elements, richness and structure, featuring cherry, berry, orange peel, floral and sweet spice flavors. Harmonious and solidly built, with a long, gripping finish. Best from 2026 through 2040.
Among Italy's elite red grape varieties, Sangiovese has the perfect intersection of bright red fruit and savory earthiness and is responsible for the best red wines of Tuscany. While it is best known as the chief component of Chianti, it is also the main grape in Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and reaches the height of its power and intensity in the complex, long-lived Brunello di Montalcino. Somm Secret—Sangiovese doubles under the alias, Nielluccio, on the French island of Corsica where it produces distinctly floral and refreshing reds and rosés.
Famous for its bold, layered and long-lived red, Brunello di Montalcino, the town of Montalcino is about 70 miles south of Florence, and has a warmer and drier climate than that of its neighbor, Chianti. The Sangiovese grape is king here, as it is in Chianti, but Montalcino has its own clone called Brunello.
The Brunello vineyards of Montalcino blanket the rolling hills surrounding the village and fan out at various elevations, creating the potential for Brunello wines expressing different styles. From the valleys, where deeper deposits of clay are found, come wines typically bolder, more concentrated and rich in opulent black fruit. The hillside vineyards produce wines more concentrated in red fruits and floral aromas; these sites reach up to over 1,600 feet and have shallow soils of rocks and shale.
Brunello di Montalcino by law must be aged a minimum of four years, including two years in barrel before realease and once released, typically needs more time in bottle for its drinking potential to be fully reached. The good news is that Montalcino makes a “baby brother” version. The wines called Rosso di Montalcino are often made from younger vines, aged for about a year before release, offer extraordinary values and are ready to drink young.